Fair n’ Square Pullover

Walking through the Stitches West 2019 market, this drew my eye.

A sampler of color – Scheepjes Stone-washed XL. Just begging to be knit into an Annetarsia project.  At 1260 total yards, I was pretty sure that it was a sweater’s worth, but I hedged my bets and started looking for a solid color yarn that could frame the different colors.  I found it at Four Purls Yarn Shop, where I was teaching the following week.  Cascade Yarns “Sonata” was bulky, light weight cotton/merino blend, which looked pretty good next to the Cotton/Acrylic Scheepjes yarn.  The next step was to knit a test swatch.

A pretty good match, knit on a size 9 needle.  I was looking for an over-sized, sweatshirt style pullover.  One that would be comfortable and light, and unrelentingly cheerful.  I wasn’t sure about the windows of my swatch, and I wanted larger blocks of color.  So, I started designing a plaid.

Here is the first layer of squares.  There are a total of 10, all around the body, which measures 44 in. circumference.  Nice and roomy, for me.  All of the yarn butterflies are in the middle of the knitting.  You can see them peeking out if you look! I worked Annetarsia ITR, of course, up to the armholes, then divided for the front and back.

Solid, neutral borders are chosen, to frame the colorwork

This sweater was knit with a specific sampler of yarn, but you could make one with leftover stash if the yarn was all equivalent weight.  I’m not going to write this up as a pattern, but here is a link to my notes and chart, if you want to see what I did.   ‘ square sweater notes.  Click here for the link to my Ravelry project page.

6 Comments

  1. Alice McConaughy

    I love this sweater. Do you have an actual pattern, or do I wing it?

    • annetarsia

      The PDF in the link is exactly what I used to knit the sweater. I “winged it”, but wrote down what I ended up doing. The chart is easily adjustable: add or subtract rows to change the length, add or subtract sts to change the width. I did a gauge swatch so that I could calculate how many sts and rows I wanted for the desired width/length of the sweater. Because I wanted it over-sized, there was a lot of room for fudging. This drop-sleeved shape is easy to knit and is very forgiving. If you have any specific questions, I’m happy to let you know how I might adapt this for any particular concern. The only element I think is important is that the yarn all be of a similar weight – being the same brand of yarn would be helpful. But it would work in any weight. If I made one in fingering weight, I would either change the chart to be many more sts and rows, or swatch the chart as is to see if I like the smaller squares, and then just do a lot more of them to get the width/length that I want. I really love this sweater, and absolutely would make another one, if the right yarn presented itself!

  2. Alice McConaughy

    I must be dense! I can’t see a link for the pdf. I’m obsessed with this sweater- it is stunning! I just got the yarn today!

    • annetarsia

      If you click on the highlighted name of the sweater in the blog post, it comes up. I sent you a copy, to your e-mail, just to make sure you are covered!

  3. Marilyn Trudeau

    I must be blind because I can’t find a PDF in the blog post. Is there any other way to obtain the directions? Thank you so much. It’s lovely and so different.

    • Maxine Jones

      There is a link in the last full line of the blog which looks like this ‘square sweater. It doesn’t have the whole name for some reason. That took me to the pattern.

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